Coming Home
by meandmyinsanity
Summary: Home isn't always a house, Edward realizes on Christmas Eve with the help of three, well, let's call them spirits, who seem to absolutely love Dickens, while on a rambunctious, chaotic journey half across the world, fuelled with too much coffee and the all consuming desire to finally see her again. Because sometimes, home is just a person. Christmas One-Shot, AH/AU HEA
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: So this is just me, getting rid of some Christmas feelings... **

**Soundtrack: How do I tell a Girl I want to Kiss her - Modern Baseball**

**Disclaimer: No Vamps in this one, characters belong to Stephenie Meyer**

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><p><strong>Coming Home<br>**

"Flight 328 to Rio de Janeiro is now ready to board. Passengers please take out your passports and wait in line", the rather brazen, impersonal sounding voice of a woman announced the next flight for those twisted minded people, who spent Christmas under the burning Brazilian sun and were now parading around the airport in nothing but shorts and Hawaiian shirts, causing a hustle and bustle to the desired terminal like there was a Black Friday sale waiting for them and Edward Cullen would have found it amusing, not to mention hilarious watching wives and children following fathers and other self-appointed travel guides like a bunch of ducklings a drake, if he'd been able to sit still for even a second.

He was anxious.

His knee was bouncing and he was tugging on his hair like a lifeline, making it even more of a mess than it usually was and sometimes, in between, he would let his hands fall down in his lap, staring at them with a furrowed brow, knowing that if _she _were here, she would pry them from his hair, telling him with a soft chuckle and a spark in her eyes that if he wanted a new hairstyle, he should just go to a stylist.

He would laugh then, at himself, at his hand, the crumpled note it was holding, at the picture in his mind and the dry humor in her voice, that would always get him back to earth, grounding, pulling, _holding_ _him_.

He sprung to his feet for the fiftieth time in the past half hour, glancing at the destination board hanging over their hands, wishing for time to move faster, the plane to arrive earlier, for the numbers to just _fucking move already_, because doing a shitload of bloody nothing was just about to drive him into madness.

As if he hadn't been there before.

He cursed under his breath, a flood of expletives and a well-aimed kick to the next garbage can relieved some of his frustration, but then he noticed a little girl's rather horrified face complete with big blue eyes and he smiled contritely, a silent apology for having lost his mind so close to the holidays, knowing that if his _she_ knew about it, she'd be after him with pitchforks.

The girl suddenly smiled in response, showing dimples and a rather large tooth gap. "You're pretty", she lisped, tugging on the butterfly clip on the tip of her red pigtail.

"Uh...ahm...Thank you?", he offered, tugging on his hair again. The exhaustion, the trembling hyperactivity due to the caffeine and sugar in his blood, keeping him running for about thirty hours now, were taking its toll and he felt like he'd been awake for years.

She giggled. "Do you have a girlfriend?", she asked, blushing slightly and it reminded him so much of her, of her blush, her giggle, the way she'd look at him out of the corner of her eyes when she thought he wasn't looking at her and it made his insides split like it did every time he thought of her .

"Something like that", he answered with a sad smile. The girl's face fell. "Oh", she said, clearly disappointed. "Is she pretty, too?"

He chuckled, kneeling down to be face to face with her. "She's very pretty", he said, smiling softly. "Much like you, Papillon." The girl beamed. "And the thing is... she doesn't even know it."

"But how?", she seemed confused, knitting her brow rather adorably. "If you're pretty, then you're pretty. How can't you know it?"

He chuckled, shaking his head. "She's very stubborn", he told her. "Headstrong. She thinks she's nothing special." He laughed at the sheer absurdity of it. She'd always been a strange one. Only seeing, what she wanted to see when it came to herself, but so incredibly observant and understanding when it came to other people.

"But she is, right?", the redheaded girl demanded to know, a fierce expression on her tiny face.

"She's very special", he assured her, fighting the tiredness in his bones.

The girl's face lit up. "Like a princess?", she asked, bouncing up and down, her braids flailing around her head.

Edward laughed, thinking about her opinion concerning prom dresses, tiaras and everything she called the "Princess-syndrome extraordinaire".

"It's pathological, Edward", she'd said, eying the dresses Alice had laid out for her for the dance with barely concealed disdain. They were all shiny and sparkling with too much lace and ruffles. "It's like they're living out some kind of childhood trauma, some media-induced conviction that every girl wants to be a princess at heart." She'd rolled her eyes, twirling strands of her honey brown hair between her fingers. "They either do that at prom or on their wedding day and the meaning of those dates gets totally lost, which is a tragedy in itself by the way. We're seventeen for fuck's sake. Shouldn't we look the part?"

He'd agreed with her, mostly because he'd never had an opinion on prom dresses before, aside from how much cleavage they were showing and he still remembered his sister's fury when she'd shown up at the winter formal dance in a knee-length blue dress and black chucks, hiding a flask filled with Tequila in her bra. They'd shared the few sips of alcohol after they'd both abandoned their respective dates for the evening, sitting on the bleachers and staring into the black and blue winter sky, talking about college and life and whether or not Pepsi was the same thing as coke (she'd been arguing against it and when he'd called her out on it, she'd insisted that they'd never clarified that they were talking about beverages and that Pepsi was definitely not the same thing as cocaine).

He still knew what she looked like in the blueish light of the floodlights.

"Yeah...", he said, furrowing his brow. "Like a princess, but much better", he added and the expression in her eyes reminded him so much of his sister Alice. The excitement, the exuberance... The memory was bittersweet.

"So she's smart, too?" , the redhead asked.

"Very smart", he answered, running a hand tiredly through his hair, thinking of how she'd beat him at every test in school except for math even though she was a year younger than him.

The girl nodded, her red braids bouncing. "Then you have to tell her", she said seriously, hands clasped around the small book she was carrying. "_A Christmas Carol_" it read on the cover and he thought that Dickens was rather strange reading material for a five year old girl.

"Tell her what?", he asked a bit dumbfounded, the lack of sleep and his anxiety catching up with him.

She rolled her eyes and it was a gesture, an expression so similar to his sister, to _Alice_, that he couldn't breathe for a moment. "That she's special, duh!" She shook her head like he was the world's greatest idiot.

"She is", he insisted and it was so surreal, talking about _her_ to the little, redheaded girl with those bright, strangely knowing eyes in the middle of an airport, while people were busy running around them, like they were in the eye of a storm.

"Then what are you waiting for?", she asked, raising an eyebrow. "She's pretty, she's smart and she's special", she counted. "Not to mention that you love her", she added as an afterthought.

He gaped at her. Blinked. Not trusting his eyes. Wondering if he'd had something stronger than coffee at some point or if five cups through the night were enough to cause hallucinations.

"Oh, don't act so surprised", she chastised him, appearing way older than her physical five years of age. "You know it."

He gulped. "Don't you have to go back to your family?", he asked uncomfortably. "Your Mom will worry about you."

She laughed. "I don't have a Mommy", she announced. His eyes widened in sympathy. "I have two Daddys!", she cried out happily, bouncing up and down like she was the one with five cups of coffee in her system.

"Kate!", a rather ruffled looking man with a messenger bag and a suitcase in hand called at that moment, shooting Edward wary looks while he reached out a hand for his daughter. Another man with short blonde hair was waiting for them with two other suitcases in hand, avidly reading the destination board. "Come on, honey. That's our flight", the man said and Kate nodded.

"I have to go", she said, lips curved into a beatific smile. She pressed a hand against Edward's cheek and looked at him with those unnervingly knowing blue eyes.

"Don't waste any more time, Edward", she whispered and it were the same words, delivered with the same expression like they were two years ago when his sister called him out on it and he wanted to cry out, to reach out for her, for that girl, who resembled her so much, but he was exhausted and tired and he saw colors and shades in strange places, flickering on the periphery of his vision, making him question his sanity and he could do naught, but whisper her name. "_Alice_", he breathed, looking into the face, that resembled his sister so much.

She just smiled, a wide, toothy smile. "She's waiting for you", she said before abruptly turning around, skipping over to where her father was waiting for her, leaving Edward in a droning state of emotional turmoil.

"I made a new friend", he heard her say proudly over the rush of blood to his head. "His girlfriend is a princess."

"That's wonderful, sweetheart", her father said with a smile in his voice. "What's his name?"

He heard her jump, skip, bounce. "Oh, I don't know", she said happily. "He didn't tell me."

Edward fell back into his chair in a daze, saw the numbers crawling slowly until his flight was finally announced.

Alice had told him the same thing two years ago. _Don't waste anymore time, Edward. She's waiting. _

She'd been Alice's best friend since the first day of primary school and a constant fixture in the Cullen household ever since then. They'd grown up together and she'd been like another younger sister, a good friend, the girl he'd sneak off with to steal cookies from the kitchen or play pranks on their neighbors or teachers, because she was just as adventurous as any boy their age and one hell a lot smarter.

She'd been there until one day she wasn't.

He walked through the terminal, not knowing where his feet where leading him, because he had only one goal in mind, had had it ever since he'd found the note in Alice's old yearbook and it was like it was burned into his body, etched into every cell, every bone, muscle and vein and he_ just wanted to see her_.

He just had to.

The boarding passed in droning silence and he saw the blonde stewardess smiling at him, reminding him of his ex-girlfriend from High School and he knew on a rational level that she was flirting with him, but he just couldn't bring up the energy to care.

"Coffee", he managed to get out, falling into his seat by the window. "Just coffee, please."

The blonde woman disappeared.

Edward folded himself into the seat, his legs and arms too long to fit properly, putting in his earphones just to have an excuse to avoid conversation, while the plane began rolling, faster and foster until it left earth, severed the connection, defied gravity and disappeared between the clouds.

Freedom.

Growing up with her, it didn't escape his notice that she'd developed a bit of a crush on him and he'd thought it was kind of adorable. He was a year older than her and Alice, Captain of the soccer team and probably the most popular guy in school.

Not that he cared.

Or she for that matter.

"It's a game", she'd always said, chewing on the tip of the pencil, she always carried around with her to hold up her hair. "And there are the ones, who play it because they love it and those, who do it because they think they have no other choice." She'd tipped the pen against the ring in her lower lip at that point. "But the thing is, we always have a choice. You can refuse to play, because people will always only be popular if there are other people, who think they are." She'd smiled then, this small smile, that made her warm, brown eyes light up. "Power to the people, Edward."

"So you don't think, I'm wonderful?", he'd pouted playfully, crossing his arms over his chest.

She'd laughed then, that deep, warm laugh, so rich from her husky voice, that sounded like she'd smoked for years when in truth she'd never had more than a joint here and there.

"You've always been wonderful", she'd said softly one time, blushing involuntarily like she would every time, he'd tease her about her little crush on him. "I don't need a whole school to tell me that."

Edward sighed, rubbing his eyes tiredly while the usual security advices were given out. The blonde stewardess brought him a cup of coffee, but he only smiled faintly, inhaling the scent and continued to stare out of the window, down on that field of clouds, willing the plane to move faster, because now, after a year of wandering and searching, wishing and dreaming, he finally had a destination.

His fingers caressed the crumpled note in his left fist, the words forever etched into his memory.

He'd wasted so much time.

Back in school, he'd known about her little infatuation, but he'd discarded it, made fun of it, had enjoyed seeing her blush, had done anything but take her seriously, because she'd never seemed overly perturbed by him putting his arm around Tanya or kissing his girlfriend of the time in the school parking lot right in front of her and his sister's eyes while they were waiting for him to drive them home.

He'd been so fucking _blind_.

She'd dated in school. A bunch of idiots in his opinion, but no one had ever asked him to put in his two cents. Alice especially had used her best death-glare to scare him off whenever he dared to tell her that he thought she was too good for all these one-track-minded imbeciles, saying that he should look in the mirror before he said shit like that.

Her words, not his. Alice had always had a penchant for cussing.

In the end, it had been him, who'd beaten up every asshole, who'd even dared to lay a finger on her. They never talked about it, but she would see the bruises on his knuckles and the black eyes and crooked noses of his opponents on Monday mornings and she'd furrow her brow, look at him questioningly with her hazel eyes as if she couldn't understand him for the life of it before shaking her head and going back to sketching hands and faces in her worn notebook.

"You shouldn't drink that", a man's voice sounded to his left and his head jerked around to see an elderly man with short, white hair and glasses taking the cup of coffee, the stewardess had just brought him.

"Hey", Edward protested, acting much like a drug addict on cold turkey. The man shook his head disapprovingly.

"Go to sleep, son. You've got about seven hours until we reach London and if you keep running on that stuff, you're going to break down before you get there", he said sternly, ignoring Edward's shocked face and open mouth.

"Sleep, boy", he said again and took a sip of the stolen coffee, screwing up his face in distaste and flipped through the pages of a leather bound volume resting on his lap. It looked like the book, Kate, the little, redheaded girl had been carrying.

Edward opened his mouth again, but before he could say anything, the old man eyed him over the rim of his glasses, freezing him in the motion. "I'll wake you up", he promised, waving his hand dismissively. "Now sleep already."

It didn't take long for him to loose control of reality. His eyes fell shut, his head hit the window and he felt the fatigue taking over his body.

He'd surprised her and Alice at their High School graduation, had flown in from New York, where he'd been living for the past year, studying pre-med at Columbia University and both their faces had lit up like Christmas trees when they'd seen him standing in the crowd of parents and siblings, his cheers droning out all the others'.

She'd been so beautiful that day, silver chopsticks replacing the usual pencils in the bun in her hair and when he'd seen her later at the dance in a shimmering silver dress and red flats, he had to silently admit, that perhaps, just _perhaps_ she wasn't just a sister to him.

She'd been dating Jacob Black at that time, but it was just the same as always with the both of them. They always found a way to end up together, discarding boyfriends and girlfriends and everything around them like they were just an afterthought to the real thing. To them.

They'd been dancing, swaying mostly, because she was so clumsy when she wasn't caught up in her art, her paintings and sculptures, that for sake of everyone around them they kept to simple movements in time to the music.

She'd laughed, close to his ear, the raspy sound sending shivers down his spine and he'd dug his fingers into the skin of her waist and hip, covered only by the thin, threadbare material, suppressing the sudden flaring up of lust in his body.

He'd held her tightly, made her laugh by making comments about the poor choice of music and the boys, who were desperately buying booze and condoms from a few trusted sources.

It had been perfect. Had been perfectly imperfect. Their own little bubble and he'd wanted to tell her that he'd missed her and her dry humor, the paint stains on her fingers and the way her hazel eyes would look at him, warm and amused and like they were waiting for him to say or do something. Anything.

He'd wanted to tell her that he was miserable in New York, that the new freedom couldn't cover the loss of his home and that he'd never been happier than in that exact moment when she'd made a joke about a drunk Mike Newton hanging over his table, passed out cold, her eyes sparkling with mischief.

But then the accident happened.

Alice, his sister, who'd foreseen each of their grandparents' deaths, who'd predicted each and every snowstorm in the dreary town of Forks, who'd known who was knocking on the door before looking outside, hadn't seen the car speeding down the road, hadn't seen the drunk driver behind the steering wheel barely keeping his eyes open, hadn't seen herself and her boyfriend Jasper in the middle of the street in front of the gym, where the dance was held, making their way over to his old Ford, when the car hit them sideways.

They were both dead upon impact.

He couldn't remember much of what had happened after. Flashes of her holding on to him, both of their clothes soaked with blood, because they'd been the first ones to reach them, the droning in his head, making it impossible to hear their own screams and agonized cries,_ shouting, praying, begging_ for them to be alive, for someone to call an ambulance, to just fucking do something already, because they couldn't, they just _couldn't_ be dead.

But they were.

He still remembered the funeral. His parents' ashen faces, her hollow cheeks, the taste of booze on his tongue, because he couldn't even get out of bed in the morning without the alcohol induced fog clouding his mind, numbing the pain.

It had been a clear day. No rain, no sun. Just a day like every other. A Friday, when they'd buried the bodies of his sister and her boyfriend, had given them back to the earth as if life hadn't taken enough from them already.

He didn't know how they'd ended up in his room. It was all a blur of words and colors and people expressing their grief and he'd broken down the minute, they'd reached his room, her small body supporting his large frame and he'd taken her with him, down unto the bed, her body pressed against his and he'd felt alive for the first time since that terrible crashing sound.

She'd looked at him with those hazel eyes. Understanding and warmth and all consuming sadness so evident and all he'd wanted had been to be _closer, closer, closer_ to her, because she was home and she was alive and she was everything. _Everything_.

They'd torn off their clothing in a frenzy, his teeth nibbling on her bottom lip, her hands in his hair, down his shoulders, his back, his hips. She'd tugged on his hair, when his tongue was circling her breast, kissing the tattooed name "Alice" on the side of her ribcage, the three black birds with their wings spread wide flying under the intricate letters of his dead sister's name, his hands pushing down the last bit of clothing and then she'd been there, naked and warm and soft, molding around him, warming flesh and bones and hearts and he'd breathed for the first time in weeks, her scent of paint and turpentine, strawberries and just a hint of Tequila invading his lungs and he hadn't wanted it to stop, had wanted it to never stop. _Never, never, never..._

She'd screamed when she'd reached her peak, her eyes shut tightly and then opening, that gorgeous brown-gold liquid color flooding his mind and he'd shouted out expletives when the waves of ecstasy hit him, soaring and burning and crashing and falling.

"Wake up", a gruff voice pierced through the barricade of tangled limps, sweat and breathy whispers, begging each other not to stop. "Wake up, boy. It's time", the voice said again and Edward awoke with a start, her name on his lips.

He was drenched in sweat, his heart beating erratically and it took him a moment before he recognized his surroundings.

A plane over the Atlantic Ocean. On the way to London. The white-haired man next to him.

He was watching him over the rim of his glasses, scrutinizing, examining, searching. Edward had no idea what he was hoping to find or if he liked what he found. His expression was inscrutable, making him think of her father when the man had refused to give him any information besides the fact that she'd been offered a scholarship at some Art School in Europe.

"We're about to reach London", the man said, closing the book in his lap and taking a sip from the cup in front of him. Tea this time, from the smell of it. It was a dark red leather volume with gold letters on the front. _A Christmas Carol _by Charles Dickens. He pointed at the cup in front of him. Steaming, black coffee; the scent brought him back under the living.

"Drink up", the man ordered. "You'll need it if you want to make it on time."

Edward took the cup warily, thinking about poison and human trafficking, but the promise of caffeine won. "In time for what?", he asked quietly, his voice raw.

The man let out a husky sound, somewhere between a laugh and a cough. "For her", he said as if that would explain everything. He adjusted his glasses. "Do you want me to spell it out, son? You should stop thinking of yourself as a fool, perhaps then you'll stop acting like one."

He didn't know if he should feel offended at the barely concealed insult in the man's words, but in the end it wasn't anything, he hadn't thought of before.

The man shook his head, his white hair glowing slightly in the bright afternoon light streaming in from the windows. "You know, the thing about humans is that they're awfully good at giving meaning to things, that are basically meaningless." He directed his dark, piercing eyes at Edward. "So in the end, it's no use to dwell on the past, because what you're doing now is important, _really important_, young man. Because sense... _meaning_... you'll find it. In the end." He smiled, an amused, self-deprecating smile with the hint of white teeth in the strange light. "In the end, it will all make sense."

Edward managed to down his coffee before they were ordered to fasten their seat belts because the plane was in its final descent, dwelling on the strange man's words like it was something hard to digest.

The anxiety began welling up inside him again, when the British country appeared in front of their eyes after they'd broken through the clouds and he felt electrified and nervous at the thought of her being so close, barely out of his reach and it would just be a few hours now until he'd finally reach his destination.

_Her_.

When he'd woken up the morning after Alice's funeral, her scent had still been lingering in the air and he'd reached out a hand, _expecting, wishing, wanting_ her to be there, next to him. A warm body in the dead days after the apocalypse.

But she hadn't been there.

She'd been gone. For hours possibly. And no one, not her friends, not her father, nor his Zombie-like parents had given him any information about her current location.

He'd been going insane.

And then he'd broken down.

The plane hit the frozen British ground, a bell rang, announcing that they'd landed on time at London Stansted Airport, welcoming and wishing them all a Merry Christmas.

It was the 24th of December and he had about five hours to make it on time.

The man next to him got up, the book with the golden letters tugged under his arm. "You know what you have to do, son", he said with his gruff voice. "Buy the girl some flowers, will you? And...", he turned around one last time. "It's time, Edward. _She's waiting_."

He'd heard that a lot. That she was waiting. Alice had said it ever since their Freshman year, had repeated it with a shake of her head and a frustrated "Duh!" and her father had said it every single time he'd ask him about her.

"She's waiting", her father would say with that inscrutable frown on his face, his fingers jerking like they'd very much like to knock some sense into him, because apparently he didn't understand whatever it was, that he was supposed to understand.

He wanted to ask them, whoever the fuck "them" were, if she knew that he was waiting, too.

For her. For a chance. For something.

Anything.

They played Christmas Carols through the speakers while he walked around the airport to the train station, his last connection to London central.

"Flowers?" , a blue haired teenage girl from a flower shop on the corner asked. She had big, golden eyes and her hair was arranged in a myriad of corkscrew curls. She smiled and instead of offering him one of those thousand rose bouquets, she held out a small bunch of tulips in various colors. "For your girl?"

Edward stopped, his eyes zeroing in on the flowers. She loved tulips. Had painted them over and over again, never getting tired of using them as a motive.

"It's never the same", she'd said one time, when he'd been teasing her about it, with that mysterious smile, that made her look like some kind of mischievous elf, an old soul in a young body, so childishly naïve and so incredibly mature at the same time. "The angle, the texture... the secret is finding the differences in things, that look the same." Her smile had become brighter and she'd tipped the end of one of her brushes against his nose. "That's important, Edward. The little things, I mean."

The little things... His eyes fell to the book on the counter next to the girl. A paperback edition of Charles Dickens' "_A Christmas Carol_".

He suppressed a smile, shook his head and held out a bank note. "I know", he said, before she could say anything. "_She's waiting_."

The girl's smile grew wider. "Whatever are you talking about?", she asked with a glint in her eyes, accepting the note with a gracious nod and handed him the tulips.

He shook his head, a wry smile on his lips. "Nothing", he muttered. "Too much caffeine."

"You're on your way home?", she asked, wrapping the flowers in pink paper.

"In a way", he said vaguely, still a bit vary from all these encounters of the third he'd had since this morning. The little redheaded girl, that had reminded him so much of his sister, had disturbed him the most.

She laughed. "Yeah", she said. "I know. Houses don't always make homes. Sometimes it's just one person. And the rest...Well, that's just an afterthought." She shook her head, the curls flowing. "In any case, Merry Christmas."

"Merry Christmas", he replied softly, before turning around to continue his journey, the flowers securely in his hands.

"Don't make her wait too long", the girl called after him with a slight giggle in her voice, that reminded him of her, of the way she liked to include laughing in every activity she undertook. "It's time, Edward."

He didn't even react, just laughed, shook his head. "I know", he wanted to cry out._ I know._ It had been time for so long now.

His fingers brushed over the small, crumpled note in his pocket and energy surged through his veins again.

When she'd left him, he'd been devastated and alcohol hadn't even been a solution, because she'd thrown out every bottle with anything even remotely alcoholic in it before leaving.

She'd even gotten rid of his mother's pralines.

It had been good, in a way. In a really painful, cold turkey kind of way, but he'd made it, had lived through it. An accumulation of days during which he'd forced himself to get in and out of bed every day, to do his chores, to study, eat and sleep until one day he'd woken up and there had been something else to do but to eat, sleep and study. The air had tasted differently, the light had been brighter and the memory of her and his sister hadn't hurt as much as they had those days before.

The train from Stansted to London was on time and he saw the snow covered scenery pass by while the world around him grew darker and afternoon blended into evening.

He'd gone home to Washington for Christmas. As painful as it was to be in his childhood home without Alice shouting from the top floor, calling him an asshole because he'd used up all the hot water, it had been necessary. For his parents, who were still walking around like Zombies, for him, because he just had to see her and he'd thought that perhaps, just perhaps she'd be home for Christmas.

She hadn't been.

And he'd been sitting in Alice's old room for the first time in a year. The walls had still been covered with photos from models in various outfits, pieces of fabrics had been scattered around the room and there had been her acceptance letter to Art School lying on the desk next to a photo of her and her best friend.

He'd opened her yearbook, because he'd always loved that one photo Alice had taken of her in summer. A close up of her face, half covered by hair, still in the motion of turning around, that faint smile, the curve of her lip, the mysterious glint in her eyes and the glowing red of the sun making her look like a fairy.

_You're an addiction_, she'd written underneath and it had been printed into every single copy of that book. _Just one shot away from an overdose. _

And he'd opened the book, but instead of seeing her smiling face in between hundreds of other faces, there had been a note sticking to the page.

A note. A phone number. An address. Somewhere in Camden Town. London.

He'd been on his way the second the book had hit the floor. Car rides, train rides, bus rides and too many cups of coffee later he'd been at an airport.

Then in London. And then there was nothing left to do but take the tube to her house and when he finally emerged from the Underground station, he was peaceful.

It was silent. Snow was falling. Dancing in the lights of the street lamps, a quiet waltz on Christmas Eve.

He reached for the note, unfolded it. Scrawny handwriting, hastily added letters and numbers.

_You'll know when the time is right_, she'd written and now he was standing on her doorstep, seeing the light in the windows, the faint smell of freshly baked goods.

And his heart was soaring, was flying and falling, because he was here and she was here and all these emotions, he'd had a year ago at the dance, when she'd been in his arms in a silver dress and red flats, came rushing back again and he wanted to tell her, tell her everything, but perhaps not in three thousand long winded sentences. Perhaps he'd just use three words. Just three little words.

He knocked.

_Home isn't always a house_. The blue-haired girl's words came back to mind. _Sometimes it's just a person. _

He heard shuffling, the soft clatter of something and then the door opened. Slowly. A head peeked outside.

"_Bella_", he whispered, hoarsely. Barely audible.

She gasped. A faint sound nearly droned out by the music playing inside and he felt his insides split, because she still looked the same with her honey brown hair, piled on top of her head, the glowing hazel eyes and the ring in her bottom lip.

"_Edward_..."

"I'm sorry", he croaked. "I'm sorry it took me so long."

Her eyes lit up and she smiled that breathtaking smile, she'd always reserve for birthdays and Friday night dinners and dances and she opened the door widely to let him in.

_Home_.

She laughed happily. "I've been waiting for you."

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><p><strong>AN: So what do you think? I really like this Bella, to be honest. And Edward, even though he's a bit thickheaded... Anyway, I love hearing from people, so why don't you just hit that little button down there and leave a review?  
><strong>

**greets, Teddy **


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: So what can I say, people? This wasn't planned? **

**But it happened:) And so I wanted to take the time to thank each and every one of you, who read and reviewed and put this in your collections and a big thank you to Sunflower Fran, who apparently rec'd this on facebook (if that's true, a kiss and much love from me;). I'm just shitty at replying to reviews, but I love them either way:)**

**So people, Happy Christmas to you all. And this is Bella's version of events. **

**Disclaimer: S.M owns it all, but probably not this Bella, just saying...**

**Soundtrack: Fidelity - Regina Spektor; The Graveyard by the House - The Airborne Toxic Event **

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><p><strong>Being Home<br>**

He was here.

Snow was falling down in spirals in front of her window, tumbling, stumbling, dancing to the sound of a song only audible in the silence between two heartbeats. She was curled up in the warmth coursing through her body from head to toe, evening the rhythm of her breaths to widen the gap between two intakes so that she could catch enough of the melody to hum along the lines.

He was _here_.

Bella felt a giggle building up in her stomach, her throat, her fingertips. Giddiness about having him here, about them finally being where she'd wanted them to be for so long now that it was bordering on utter insanity and about the fucking absurdity of it all.

So instead of giggling she hummed a few notes about the silliness of first love, the careless fluttering of a butterfly's wing and kissed the bare skin of his chest.

He was here.

Edward Cullen. The object of affection to her silly crush, the cryptonite to her superpowers, the Samson to her Delilah.

Edward Cullen had _always_ been there.

Ever since Alice Cullen had taken her hand firmly into her own tiny fist on the first day of elementary school, telling her that she'd seen that they would be best friends forever and ever (Alice absolutely loved the dramatics of hyperboles even at the tender age of six), and had dragged her out of the quiet solitude her strange talent and her father's natural disposition to communicate via inscrutable grunts and huffs had created and into the warm and boisterous household of the Cullen family.

It had been wonderful to suddenly bask in the warmth of openly shown affection, which had been so scarce in the Swan-household ever since her mother's sudden departure three days after her fifth birthday. Not that Bella had been surprised in the least – she'd known it that morning, had tasted it in the air, had smelled the sudden emptiness and she hadn't even bothered to search for her, knowing full well that there would only be an empty closet and a hastily written note waiting for her.

Instead she'd grabbed a chair and had started to make breakfast. Eggs and bacon, her father's favorite meal.

She shook her head slightly, a frown on her pale face. The motion pressed her nose into the small valley where his collarbones met each other and she breathed in, feeling like her heart was suddenly growing a size or two.

He still smelled like he used to and it was like doing some sort of time-travel, because suddenly Bella felt like that gangly thirteen year old girl again, who didn't know what the fuck one was supposed to do with breasts and glasses and unrequited crushes.

Alice had laughed at her, amused about the state Bella was in – a confused and stuttering mess with wide eyes and heavy breathing after the strange way she'd just reacted to seeing Edward working in the garden – _shirtless_.

After putting herself together at least to the degree of functioning speech and movements, Alice had told her calmly that she _liked_ Edward, that she'd _love_ him one day – all the while busy with applying just the right kind of lipstick.

The news had sent her right back into that whirlwind of mixed up emotions and it had taken her a moment until she'd been able to scoff at that crazy assumption.

Edward was her pirate buddy, the Sam to her Frodo, the stupid Huckleberry Finn to her Tom Sawyer. She didn't like him like _that_. Stuff like that was _stupid_.

She might or might not have said that out loud, because next thing she knew, Alice had been pointing at her with her make-up brush (which was pretty damn scary), telling her that if she ever got out of her hormone-induced coma, she'd _feel_, what Alice had seen.

"You'll be waiting for a long time", she'd said that day while shaking her head as if she couldn't quite believe it. "But he'll come to you, honey." Her voice had been laced with a hint of sadness. "One day, he'll come to you."

And now he was here. Bella traced the column of his neck, the sharp jawline, the crooked nose, saw the moles and the tiny scars from all these accidents he'd accumulated over the years and she felt tears prickling in her eyes, because he was _here_ and he was _breathing_ and he was alive and because she didn't have to wait anymore.

She'd felt it. When the daze had settled and her mind had been clear once again – painting always helped with sorting out feelings – she'd been able to feel it, too.

It had always been that way with her and Alice. Alice saw and Bella felt whatever the hell you want to call it. The future, perhaps. Or dominoes. The connections between things, the causes and effects of minor and major decisions on the great network the mortals called life.

They'd named it _barrettes_. This thing. A silly name for something, that had scared them both to death until they'd met each other. Laughing about it made it easier to cope every time Bella was overwhelmed with feelings that weren't her own and Alice was haunted with images of horror and intimacy, stealing their innocence way too early and irrevocably.

They'd named it barrettes to rob it of its power over them.

She didn't like terms like _fate_ or _destiny_. It was like nails on a chalkboard and it honestly made her skin crawl. She didn't believe that people were _meant to be_ or that there was such a thing as _meaning_ in this world. It was all just Brownian motion, random motion of particles in a suspended liquid, effecting and reacting and changing just due to exposure.

But there was also a certain kind of inevitability when it came to the bigger picture. Things, that couldn't be changed no matter how many things you pushed, how many variables you changed. You just couldn't get away fast enough to escape the impact.

Just like Bella Swan couldn't escape Edward Cullen.

Slowly, she sat up, the blanket falling from her shoulders and she stared out into the pale Christmas morning, saw the snow falling and she tried to even her breathing, to control her blood circulation and set her mind at peace so that she could feel it.

Barrettes, you know?

It didn't work.

Perhaps it was because he was too close. Perhaps because he was there. Perhaps because the waiting was over and she wasn't used to feel anything but that draining, longing feeling and the emptiness in the air.

But this was different. Was, quiet, peaceful, was _home_.

She hadn't felt like that ever since she'd left him that morning in his bed, his face so young and innocent and yet marred by the events they both had witnessed, by all the blood, they'd seen.

The sound of the crash was still ringing in her ears.

Ever since Alice had told her about the future and her own feelings had confirmed it, her easygoing relationship with Edward had turned into something entirely different.

When Alice was seeing and Bella was feeling then Edward was simply _living_.

He was always so incredibly alive that she sometimes swore she could feel the energy vibrating off him and it never failed to took her breath away. He was so immersed in whatever he was doing, school, sports, _people_ that she sometimes had to squint her eyes so that she could make him out in the middle of all this chaos.

"It's like he's constantly running", she'd told Alice one time when they'd been sitting on the front porch of the Cullen house, sipping cocktails since the parents had been out of town, leaving the liquor cabinet unlocked. "And he doesn't have the time to take a breath and get a clear look at all this stuff around him."

"Yeah, we get it", Alice had slurred. She'd been quite drunk already at that point, which wasn't a difficult state to achieve when you were only about four feet five tall and weighted the equivalent of a small backpack. "He's blind and stupid. Yadayada..." She'd waved it aside, her eyelids heavy and about to fell shut. "But tell me one thing and one thing only, Bella-_daaahling_..." She'd drawn out the word until it sounded as if she was speaking with the same southern drawl as her boyfriend Jasper. "Do you also compare him to some kind of blind hound dog in that twisted metaphor of yours?"

"It's a simile, little Pixie", she'd retorted, gulping down her drink because the sight of a sweaty, shirtless Edward Cullen after this afternoon's soccer game was still doing things to her body.

"Yeah?", drunk Alice had replied. "Explains why 'ya people always end up together like a pair of stupid magnets", she'd muttered, her eyes half closed, before she'd jumped up from her chair. "Stupid magnets!", she'd cried out and laughed manically to Bella's utter amusement.

Alice had been right. They'd always ended up together at every bloody event their stupid school had housed and at the time it had been seriously driving her insane.

Ever since she'd realized this... barrette. This thing between Edward and her. The fucking inevitability of it, she'd been caught somewhere between exhausted resignation and temporary fits of rebelliousness, when she'd shove and push and pull at every single variable, every particle and puzzle piece until she'd made a mess of it all and would wake up in the morning to see a frowning Alice Cullen looking down at her with her spiky hair around her head, shaking it in worry.

"There are things we can fight", she would whisper, stroking sweaty strands of hair out of her face and gazing into Bella's brown eyes, glistening with so many shed and unshed tears. "And others we can't. And you can fight all you want, darling, but it will only cause you more pain in the long run."

Nothing in life comes without a price. Bella and Alice had realized that a long time ago. Loss and gain held their balance and knowledge – _barrettes_ – it came with its very own form of payment.

Perhaps that was what had always drawn her to Edward. His ability _not_ to care, _not_ to know, to be as innocent as you can be when you embrace life with both arms.

The benefits of being blind.

She turned around, still sitting, her hair falling over her shoulder, the tips tickling the soft skin of his chest and arms.

He was beautiful. All sharp lines and beautifully crafted features and she felt like she couldn't breathe.

Ever since it had mattered, everyone had known he was beautiful and it was like all these outer characteristics, his beauty, his popularity, made him public property and suddenly everybody had laid claim on him. Like they _owned_ him.

She'd struggled with accepting her future. Struggled with the meaning of the word _waiting_, struggled with the idea of _stagnation, torpidity, inactivity_, struggled with playing the stupid princess in her tower, struggled with about anything until she'd woken up one morning, realizing that if she couldn't change the variables, couldn't push the particles enough to cast the die again, then she could do just about fucking anything.

She'd end up with him either way.

And so she'd started dating. To be honest, she'd liked them well enough. They'd been nice boys, nice and polite and about as remarkable as a bunch of paramecia in a culture dish and they'd bored her rather quickly with a half-life-period of about three days, which had had Alice in stitches every single Monday morning.

What she hadn't planned on was Edward Cullen. Which shouldn't have been that surprising since he'd never been what you'd call _predictable_.

She smiled at that, tracing with her fingers over the sharp lines of his face, the dips and curves and bones, relishing in the contact and the possibility to further improve the maps she'd begun drawing a year ago.

She hadn't counted on Edward going all caveman on every poor boy, that had the misfortune to date her and it had confused her immensely, because he'd had a _girlfriend_ and he'd never said fucking _anything_ and it hadn't been _time_ yet and still he acted like she somehow _belonged_ to him and underneath all that superficial flattery, that his jealousy fueled violent outbursts had caused, she'd been furious.

Because _how dare he_? She'd been the one supposed to be waiting and yet, the moment she'd decided to spend her time differently until the clock would strike midnight, it suddenly hadn't mattered that he'd kiss his girlfriend in front of her every single morning.

But she hadn't said anything, because she'd promised Alice that she'd be _patient_, that she'd be _gentle_, that she would _wait_.

And she'd waited, had invested into the small moments they'd had together when they'd sit on the bleachers, their vision blurry from the Tequila in the blueish light of the floodlights and he'd look at her – really look at her – and she could suddenly see how it would be one day - when the waiting period was over, when the sizzling feeling of being electrocuted at every touch mellowed into something more peaceful - so wrapped up in each other, in smiles and banter that the outside world would be just that – an afterthought.

Bella stood up, her bare feet touching the hardwood floor and she grabbed the old, faded Ramones-T-Shirt, that she'd stolen from his wardrobe years ago and put it on. He was still fast asleep and she smiled because sleep had a way of erasing lines of age and worry and exhaustion, making him look so sheepishly innocent and the thought about the not so innocent things they'd been engaging in just a few hours ago made her blush fervently.

When he'd gone away to New York for college it had been easier, she still missed him like crazy, but it was like a clean break, because she could just miss him as a whole and not just pieces and phrases and parts that she didn't know about.

Waiting had been easier and she'd been able to distract herself with Jacob Black's abs and all the fun you could have with your clothes on, because while she didn't want to save her virginity religiously, she also wasn't that desperate to loose it.

But then he'd been back and there had been something different in his eyes, a spark, a different light and it was like he'd finally stopped this insane hurry he'd always seemed to be in to take a look at his surroundings.

And he'd looked at her. In that silver dress and her red shoes like Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz and she'd been ready to fall in to his arms when he'd shown up at their graduation ceremony – so happy, so deliriously, exuberantly _happy_ – and when they'd been finally dancing together to some slow and sappy love song, it had all been too much, his smile, his smell, the look in his eyes while he teased her about being such a clutz - _"So clumsy, Bella. How can someone so tiny cause such chaos?"_ - and she'd felt like they were on the verge of a breaking point, like if he just leaned in closer, if she just stepped on her toes and just_ crossed that bridge_ – terminating waiting perhaps not by _his_ decision but by_ her own _-

But then this bone-crushing, gut-wrenching feeling had hit her, indescribable terror filling her eyes and voice and she'd dragged him out, barely listening to his confused questions with her mind droning, stifled, hoarse cries escaping her throat – a barely articulated chant of _Alice, Alice, Alice_ – and then they'd been outside just seconds before the car hit the both of them.

She still saw her laughing face, heard the drunk giggling, saw her clinging on to Jasper in her sparkling black dress, the headlights of the car illuminating her in a sudden flash like lightning before the thunder hit.

The sound of porcelain shattering on the tiled floor ripped her back into reality and she blinked, slowly, stared at her hands, expecting blood to taint the skin like blended acrylic paint and she wondered, stared, admired the flawless white skin stretched around bones and she felt her ragged breathing calm down when the warm light of her small pantry kitchen seeped in and erased the darkness of that night.

She made coffee with a strange sense of calmness and it was like making an inner inventory, like checking your skin for cuts and wounds and their healing process and to suddenly find only flawless, smooth skin instead of a scarred surface.

In the days and weeks, in the _hours_, after the accident there had been two possibilities when wave upon waves of feelings and emotions and _barrettes_ build and tumbled and crashed upon her and she'd held onto the doors of her mind in sheer despair while also holding on to him so that the demons wouldn't drag him down into the realms of hell, a place she'd barely been able to escape.

And so it happened that when he'd been doing the dragging part, closing gaps and chasms and about anything that physically separated them, she'd been so _weak_, so unable to resist him, the pleading in his eyes and she'd given in – given in because she'd wanted to be alive and _he_ was life and he'd been so broken, so damaged, so utterly _hopeless_ that she'd just wanted, wanted, wanted...

She still remembered the whimper that had escaped her, when she'd touched his chest – warm, golden skin and hard lines – because it was like suddenly being on painkillers – a mind-numbing, euphoric feeling surging through her veins and she'd pressed her lips to his, their fingers frantically tearing of clothes and she'd taken – had taken it all – the parts she'd wanted to know about, what a breath between two lungs tasted like, the feel of two naked bodies against each other, his tongue circling her breast and her hand wrapped around him.

There had been pain when he'd pushed in for the first time and she'd shut her eyes tightly, welcoming, _relishing_ in the physical pain and she'd moved against it, pushing and pulling and tearing at his body because she so wanted him to be hers and he wasn't and there had been anger and hurt and _love _ underneath the overall desperation and it had built and built like wavering towers, a coiling knot in the pit of her stomach and she'd moved faster in need for friction, for pressure, for _something_ and she heard him shout "_Look at me!_" and she'd ripped open her eyes, stared right into this dazzling green and she'd exploded into a myriad of colors and barely hidden expletives.

When she'd opened her eyes again, she'd been sitting in a sun parlor overlooking soft green hills, sunlight streaming in through the windows, blinding and warming and the faint traces of piano music had been lingering in the soft afternoon air and she hadn't needed to pinch herself to know that this was a dream.

"Beautiful, isn't it?", a voice had said and she'd whirled around in the chair she'd been sitting in and what she'd seen had made her gasp.

"Alice?", she'd whispered, so many conflicting emotions battling inside her at the sight of her dead best friend in a white dress in style of the 1920s, her hair artfully arranged and adorned with clips and flowers and she'd sat down gracefully. "Alice, what are you doing here?"

Her friend had raised one perfectly arched eyebrow and motioned to the tea set complete with a plate of small pastries on the table between them. "Drinking tea. What else?"

Bella had frowned and looked down at her own body, realizing that she, too was wearing a long white dress adorned with lace and ribbons, her own honey-brown hair pinned up at the back of her head.

"Right...", she'd said, masking her confusion. "What kind of tea are we drinking?"

"Whatever you want to drink", Alice had said with a smile, bringing the cup to her lips and taking a sip. "I think I got some coca cola", she'd said then. "Or ginger ale? Ginger tea... Could be Mountain Dew or... Oh right! Orange juice!"

Tentatively, Bella had also taken a sip, the strange liquid changing its taste from a Starbucks cappuccino with Christmas blend into a strawberry smoothie and then into something resembling freshly made iced tea.

"How are you?", she'd asked Alice, taking in the peaceful scenery. There had been paintings hanging on the walls. Picasso, Chagall, Dalí next to some of her own.

"As well as could be expected", Alice had said with a nod. "I tried to make it much earlier, but it took some time to figure out a way."

"How did you make it?", Bella had asked, the next sip she'd taken had tasted like chocolate milk, dark and rich and warm.

"Context", Alice had simply said. "The human brain doesn't work on single stimulation. Visual, acoustical and sensory information go hand in hand and you need history to combine them." She'd shaken her head a bit theatrically. "We're nothing without our history."

"Or historically inspired dresses", Bella had added. "Excellent work by the way."

"Thank you", Alice had said. "I know how much you like Downton Abbey."

They'd been silent, staring through the open glass windows, a soft breeze playing with their hair.

"You have to leave", Alice had suddenly said and Bella -_ shocked, frozen, falling_ – hadn't moved an inch. "Before he wakes up."

"Why?", she'd whispered, her voice hoarse, desperately trying to blink away the tears.

"Because it's the better, the _healthier_ option", Alice had said softly. "I won't deny it. You can stay with him, Bella. You _can_. But Edward... he needs to do this alone. Like you needed to do things alone, to grow up on your own. He needs that, too, darling."

She'd shut her eyes, pain wafting through her and she'd been so tired, so goddamn _tired_.

"Because he needs to come to me", she'd whispered, the words cutting through her skin like knives.

Alice' voice had been soft. "Yes, he does", she whispered and there had been no need to say more, no excuse, no sympathy. Just the soft and silent breeze, blowing away the tears.

She breathed hard, her forehead pressed against the cool wood of the door frame, because leaving him in that bed the morning after had been the hardest thing she'd ever done and it still tore her apart whenever she thought about it.

But she'd known it was right. Had felt it. _Barrettes_.

She banged her fists against the wall, tried to rip herself out of that memory, out of the pain. _Breathe, girl_ , she told herself. _He's here. It's over. _

The same inkling had let her throw out anything even remotely alcoholic in that house, because she couldn't shake the feeling that judging from his personality and his situation he could be vulnerable for just that sort of addiction.

The rest had been simply planning and checking and just a hint of melancholy and cheesy sappiness when she'd put that note right over her picture and quote, because it had been just so _damn fitting_.

And then she'd been on a plane, feeling the physical distance like a bleeding wound ripping her apart at the seems.

Bella shook her head at that and started picking up the smashed pieces of porcelain from the floor, while the water for the coffee was boiling on the stove. It smelled like Christmas, the cold outside making the warmth inside even cozier with the snow hugging the house like a blanket and the notes of that song found their way past vocal chords and tongue and mouth and teeth and lips.

It felt like home.

They way she'd left, the way she'd placed the hints had probably been the most logical, most _planned_ thing in her life, because if Edward had to choose her – and she wanted him to choose her so _badly_ – then he had to be ready and in order for him to be ready, he'd have to cope with Alice' death and if he finally came to that point, well, then he'd be able to open that yearbook.

And if he wanted – if it was _his_ _choice_ – then he'd find her.

Two nights ago she'd been at an ice cream parlor. Fifties style. It had been a dream again, because they'd both been wearing fluffy dresses with petticoats, their hair curled, a perfect line of eyeliner perfecting the immaculate make-up with just the perfect shade of red lipstick.

"He's coming", Alice had said, licking the cream off her spoon and Bella had felt the excitement and anxiety welling up inside her, while she'd been picking at her gloves with the lace trim, trying to determine what her ice-cream tasted like. Something between vanilla and apple strudel. Or perhaps just chocolate.

"Are you sure?", she'd asked. During the past year there had been a few moments where she'd spotted an unruly head of copper hair here and there and getting her hopes up and then crushed was just brutal.

"He's found the note. Very clever of you by the way. And very _sneaky_", Alice said, smiling beatifically. "Or at least he's going to", she clarified. "Either way, I'm tired of him being an idiot, so I decided to speed things up a bit.."

Bella had laughed quietly, shaking her head. "And how do you plan to do that?", she'd asked, but instead of an answer she'd caught glimpses of a redheaded little girl, an old man with a cup of tea on an airplane and a blue-haired flower girl in a corner shop.

"Friends of yours?", she'd asked, curious despite her previous reluctance. Knowledge comes with a price. She'd always known that.

Alice had smiled mysteriously. "In a way."

There had been music in the air, mindless, self-indulging, bubbly songs matching the shiny chrome surfaces of the tables and chairs and she'd wanted to ask Alice for some coins for the jukebox but didn't.

"Tell him I'm sorry", Alice had suddenly said, her big, golden eyes fixed on Bella. "Tell him there was no way to change it." She'd smiled sadly. "And don't be angry with him because he's a stupid, thickheaded idiot."

"I won't", she'd promised, biting her lip, staring at her reflection in the table's shiny surface. "I miss you, Alice", she'd said breaking that unspoken agreement, where this was nothing more than two best friends enjoying an afternoon snack.

"I miss you, too." Alice voice had sounded strained. "But there was no possibility to run, do you understand? Much like with you and Edward. Jasper and I -"

"You knew it", Bella had said quietly, her hands curled into fists and she'd seen Alice nod on the periphery of her vision.

"I did."

And she could have broken down – had been so freaking close – but the past year had not only healed Edward, but also herself and so she'd smiled at the girl in the polka-dotted dress and not said a word.

She heard the floorboard creak, heard a sigh, the rustling of clothes while she was busy fishing for two clean mugs in the cupboard and she felt her skin break out in goosebumps when his warm, calloused hands settled on that little patch of naked skin, where her shirt had ridden up, moving around to grasp her hips before he pressed a small kiss against her neck.

"Good morning", he whispered, his voice deep and raw from sleep and it reminded her so much of yesterday when she'd opened her door not really expecting him to be there, but then to really see him there – standing on her doorstep with snowflakes in his hair and an apologetic smile on his lips – it had been like all the missing pieces had suddenly fit together – a soft click – and even the last bit of anger had flown away.

She froze, her hands still on the mugs, the smell of coffee and warm bagels invading her mind - Christmas, it was Christmas – and it was like yesterday evening all over again.

They'd been sitting on her couch in the living room, drinking too much wine to cover up the sudden nervousness, talking about her Art School scholarship, about Charlie, who'd wanted to kill Edward ever since she'd left in a hurry the morning after the funeral, laughing about the hundred ways in which this situation should be serious and _difficult_, but wasn't – no really, it wasn't, just a slight awkwardness covering it all – and then she'd put away her glass of shimmering red wine, clicking just lightly on the small couch table, and she'd straddled his hips, her hands placed softly, carefully on his shoulders – breathing in, oh breathing in – and then she'd smiled, relaxed and happy and _home_ and his smile had mirrored hers and then leaning down and whispering "_Hi_" like it was a secret before pressing her lips against his.

She turned around, her eyes traveling over the crumpled lines of his dress shirt up his torso, the sharp jawline until she met his eyes and there wasn't just a spark in there anymore, no, now it was a fire, burning bright and blazing and all consuming and her breath hitched in her throat.

Bella placed a hand on his chest where his heart was beating erratically and all she could feel – every _barrette_ – was just peace and calm and... _love_.

She didn't need him to say it. She didn't want him to say it.

"I got a present for you", she whispered as if not to pierce the bubble enveloping them.

He furrowed his brow, blinking in confusion. "How did you know?", he asked, a slight smile tugging on his lips, while his hands were traveling up her body, igniting fires wherever they went.

"Just a feeling I had", she smiled and kissed him.

He was finally _home_.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: Hope you like it;) Much love, Teddy  
><strong>


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